Distributor drive



Feb. 7, 1961 c. o. BRUESTLE DISTRIBUTOR DRIVE 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Sept. 6, 1957 INVENTOR. N 62m 0. 520mm;

4770 EA/EVS E3 ii Feb. 7, 1961 c. o. BRUESTLE 2,970,486

DISTRIBUTOR DRIVE Filed Sept. 6, 1957 's Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. 6 R: O 52056745 ,4 7'70ENEYS Feb. 7, 1961 c. o. BRUESTLE DISTRIBUTOR DRIVE 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Filed Sept. 6, 1957 INVENTOR. 62/24 52055745 Unite stateS patg DISTRIBUTOR DRIVE Carl 0. Bruestle, Metuchen, NJ., assignor to Synero Machine Company, Perth Amboy, N.J., a corporation of New Jersey Filed Sept. 6, 1957, Ser. No. 682,344

4 Claims. (CI. 74-59)- on which it is being wound, in order to eifect the winding in smooth continuous layers.

The invention comprises the mechanism hereinafter disclosed for such operation in which the wire, cable or rope guide is caused to reciprocate back and forth transversely of the drum being loaded, and including mechanism for adjusting the stroke of the guide to adapt it for loading drums of different lengths.

The basic object of this invention will be best understood from the following detailed description of the embodiment thereof selected for illustration herein.

In the accompanying drawings,

Figure l is a front elevational view of one form of mechanism in accordance with this invention, showing a few parts in cross-section and some parts broken standards 10 and 12 are illustrated, which standards are exemplary of the type of structure used in loading cable drums. The empty drum is mounted upon pintles, not shown, which are supported in the standards 10 and 12 below the mechanism illustrated in Fig. l, and which are power driven to effect rotation of the drum.

Mounted on top of the standards 10 and 12 respectively, are a pair of bearings 16 and 18 in which is rotatably mounted a shaft 20 which projects beyond each of the bearings, as shown. This shaft is provided with a lead thread and is commonly found in distributing devices of this type. It can be emphasized here that this invention is concerned with a 7 novel method of 7 driving this lead screw. Likewise, in accordance with prior practice, the lead screw shaft 20 passes through'a nut fixture rotated in any suitable timed relationship.

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center by means of a coupling device 44. As shown in Figure 2, also mounted between the plates of the cage are a pair of rotatable pick-up rollers 44 which engage the rear side of a rack 46 which is held thereby in mesh with the gear 36. The rack 42 is secured to the end of a link 48 which is pivotally connected to a nut 50, see Figure 4, which threadedly engages an adjusting screw 52 journaled in a guide frame 54 secured to the end of shaft 56. By rotating the screw 54 the nut 50 can be adjusted radially with respect to the axis of the shaft 56 to adjust the stroke of the crank arm which consists of the members 54, 48 and 46. Shaft 56 is journaled in the standard 10 and secured thereto is a drive sprocket 58. This drive sprocket is connected in any suitable manner, not shown, by means of a drive chain to some part of the drive mechanism for the drum, so as to be In the actual machine of the drawings the ratio of rotation of sprocket 58 to the drum is one'to one, but as will appear to those skilled in the art, by the proper proportioning of the other parts of the mechanism different drive ratios can be utilized.

At 69 is a gear which is freely rotatable on a reciprocably mounted shaft 62. This shaft is reciprocably mounted in forms on the bearing brackets 16 and 18 and is held against rotation while having reciprocal motion by mean-s of a fixed pin 63 which engages in a slot 61 in the side of the shaft 62, see Fig. 1. Similarly the pin 65 cooperates with the corresponding slot, not shown, at the other end of this shaft. On the end of the shaft 62, adjacent the gear 60, is a hand lever 64 by means of which the shaft 62 can be manually pulled or pushed to various transverse positions in preliminary adjusting the machine for a particular operation.

Referring again to Figure 4, there is shown journaled on the sleeve bearings on the extension 32 of shaft 20, a pair of unidirectional clutch housings 66 and 68. Mounted on tubular extensions of thesehousings and keyed thereto, are the gears 70 and 72 respectively. At 74 and 76 are the driven members of the clutches which are respectively keyed to the shaft extension 32. These unidirectional clutches are very well known in the mechanical arts and take many specifically different forms. The feature of them is especially as utilized in the mechanism disclosed here that when the housings thereof are driven the related driven members are caused to rotate with the housings in one direction and to stand still on the return strokes of the housings. In accordancewith the purposes of this invention, these'unidirectional clutches are oppositely acting, that is one will drive the shaft 20 in one direction and one direction only, and the other will drive the housing in the opposite direction, and in that direction only, all as will appear more fully here inafter.

On the extreme end of the extension 32 .is' a hand wheel 78'by means of which the'lead screw shaft 20 i can be manually rotated to position the distributor for 22 which has a pair of upstanding guide bars 24 and an idler guiding roller 26 through and over which the wire passes to the drum being loaded. The nut 22' has a depending tail 28, which has semicircularly notched ends which slidably engage a rod 30 rigidly mounted in and extending between the standards 10 and 12. Thus this distributor assembly is held in a vertical plane in which it can reciprocate back and forth.

As clearly illustrated in Figure 4, the lefthand projecting end 32 of the shaft 20 is provided with a sleeve bearing 34 on which is freely and rotatably mounted a gear 36. Engaging the-sides ofthis gear area pair of flanged sleeves 38. on which is freely. oscillatable a cage 40 comprising a pair of parallel 'pl'ates" connected at the starting. I

On the shaft 62 are flanged sleeves 80 and 86, which can be positioned longitudinally on the shaft and locked thereon by set screws. Between themare a second pair of flanged sleeves 82 and 88 which are freely slidable on the shaft 62. Interposedbetween each pair 'of flanged sleeves respectively, are the compression springs 84 and,

90. It is important to note here, as appears in Figure 1, that the shaft 62 passes through an opening in the tail piece 28 and. that ,the flanges of the sleeves82 and 88; engage the outerfstop faces of thet'ailpiece, as illustrated at the righthand side in Figure 1. In the actual ma chine the standards 10 and 12jare much further spaced than'appears in Figure "1, because thei slia'fts have' been. broken away to get the figure on the sheet; As a result of this the righthand side of the tail piece 28 hasbeen broken away, which makes it look as though the flanged sleeve 88 passes inside of the tail piece, but this is not so. To put it another way, the shaft 62 passes through openings in the tail piece which are just big enough to provide free movement of the tail piece, so that the flanges of the sleeves 82 and 88 abut thetail piece from opposite sides.

On the righthand end of shaft 62 is a detent collar 92. Attached to the outer face of the standard 12 is a fixture 94 on which is pivotally mounted at 98 a lever 96-, which carries-a detent roller 100 for cooperation with detent 92. The free end of lever 96 is pivotally connected in a clevis 102 on arod which can reciprocate up and down in the fixture 94. This rod is provided with a pair of adjutable lock nuts iii-8 to adjust the tension on a compression spring 164 lying between them and the fixtures, see Figure 3 for a clear illustration of this structure. As will be apparent the spring 104 forces the detent roller 109 into firm contact with the surfaces of the detent 92. k

In describing the operation of this mechanism it will be assumed that the machine is running and that the distributor nut 22 has been moving to the left and is about to reach the extreme lefthand position for the particular adjustment of the machine. Asthe nut moved to the left it finally came into contact with the flanged sleeve 82 and began to move it towards the flanged sleeve 80 fixed to the shaft 62, thereby compressing the spring 84-. Let us assume that these operations have continued to the point where the flanged sleeve 82 has already engaged the end of flanged sleeves 80 and has moved the shaft 62 to the left to the point where the detent roller 1% is on the cylindrical portion of the detent 92. At this time gear 60 has just moved out of contact with gear 72. In the next instant the compressed spring 84 having been relieved of the restraint caused by the detent roller 100, whereupon spring 84 will kick the shaft 62 all the way to the left bringing. the gear 60 into engagement with the gear 70. At this point it may be noted that the ends of the teeth on the gear 60 and the adjacent ends of the teeth on the gears 70 and 72 are tapered in an axial direction so as to insure its engagement even if the teeth are not exactly aligned.

As soon as gear 60 engages the gear 70 the driving rotational force for the lead screw 20 will be reversed. This drive is effected by the reciprocation of the rack bar 46 by the crank 54. This crank is continuously rotating, causing the rack to reciprocate man obvious manner and to thereby rotate the gear 36 with which it meshes. This gear in turn is always iii mesh with the gear 60, so that it is oscillating back and forth through an angle determined by the propo'rtioning' of these gears and the length ofthe stroke of the rack. It will be recalled that the length of the stroke'of the rack can be adjusted by turning the screw 52' and moving the nut 56 radially.

Let us" now assume that" the unidirectional cluteh 66- is to drive the lead screw shaft 2t) in a clockwise direction, viewed fr'om the r'ighthahd end, for the return travel of'the nut 22, that is from the left to the right. This means then that theclutch 66 will drive in a clockwise direction. We will assume that the rack 46 at this in-' reverse direction of the rack 46, shaft 2% will be given anothe'rimpulse in the clockwise directio'ri. The length and the speed of this impulse can: be adjusted in'an obvious manner by adjusting the stroke of the crank and the speed of rotation of the sprocket 58. For any particular set-up these 'idju'stfuents will be fixed; tnepdinr;

is that the shaft 20 can be given any desired number of impulses for each rotation of the drum or fractional rotation thereof.

As the shaft 62 snapped to its extreme left the detent 92 moved to the left with it, so that the detent roller 10!) now engages the righthand conical portion of the member 92 under the loading of spring 104. Thus shaft 62 is held at its lefthand' position with wide spaced gear meshing with the gear but out of mesh with the gear 72; This condition persistsuntil the nut 22 approaches the righthand extreme of its stroke for any adjusted condition. As it approaches this extreme the right face of the tail 28 engages the flanged collar 88 which then slides along the shaft 62 with it, compressing the spring 90. When, as previously explained with regard to the other side of the machine the flanged collar 88 engages the flanged collar 86 fixed to the shaft 62, that shaft will begin to move to the right with the nut, moving the detent 92-to the right with respect to the detent roller 100,.

until it is at the end of the stroke that roller moves up onto the cylindrical face of the detent 92' where spring 194 no longer restrains it. At this instant the spring 90 shifts shaft 62 to the extreme right, moving the gear 60 out of engagement with gear 70 and into engagement with the gear 72. p

The rack 46 continues its reciprocation but the gear 60 now drives the gear 72. This gear is connected to the oppositely acting unidirectional clutch 68, so that shaft 20 is now impulsed to rotate step-by-step in a counterclockwise direction, causing the nut 22 to begin its return stroke.

In order to prevent any backlash in the lead screw 20 onthe return non-driving strokes of the rack 46, there is provided a friction clutch on that shaft. It consists of a friction disc 21 secured to the bearing 18 and cooperating friction disc 23 secured to the shaft 20. These friction discs are loaded bya compression spring 24 which abuts against acollar 99 secured on the end of the shaft 20. This arrangement provides a suflieient drag on the shaft 20 so that it has no tendency to move opposite to its driven direction during the nonworking stroke of the rack.

From the above description it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many of the details of this invention may be varied without departure from the true subject matter thereof. It is preferred, therefore, that the disclosure betaken in an illustrative sense and that the scope of protection be determined by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

I. In adistributor of 'the'type described for heavy cable, a rotatably mounted lead screw, a reciprocable guide having a nut engaging said lead screw, driving means including a pair of oppositely acting unidirectional overrunning clutches for applying a series of successive driving pulsesto s'aidlead screw to rotate it alternatively in opposite directions for each successive series, and snap action means a'ctuatedby said guide for selectively actuating said clutches to cause said alternative rotations at precise intervals, said snap action means including aslidable bar, a pair'of spring loaded members on said bar and engageable by said guide, and a spring loaded detent for both resisting and then aiding movement of said bar in either direction.

2. In a distributorof the type described for heavy cable, a rot'atabl-y mounted lead screw, 21 reciprocable guide having a nut engaging said lead screw, driving means including a pair of oppositely acting unidirectional overrunning clutches for applying a series of successive driving pulses to said lead screw to rotate it alternatively in opposite directions for each successive series, and snap action means actuated by said guide for selectively actuating said clutches-to cause said alternative rotatiohs at precise intervals, said Unidirectional clutches 5 each having a driving gear and said selecting means hav ing a gear for alternatively cooperating with said gears.

3. In a distributor of the type described for heavy cable, a rotatably mounted lead screw, a reciprocable guide having a nut engaging said lead screw, driving means including a pair of oppositely acting unidirectional overrunning clutches for applying a series of successive driving pulses to said lead screw to rotate it alternatively in opposite directions for each successive series, snap action means actuated by said guide for selectively actuating said clutches to cause said alternative rotations at precise intervals, said selecting means including a slidable bar having a pair of abutment members alternatively engageable by said guide, and springs bearing on said abutment members which are initially compressed by said guide and subsequently impart a snap action movement to the bar.

4. In a distributor of the type described for heavy cable, a rotatably mounted lead screw, a reciprocable guide having a nut engaging said lead screw, driving means including a pair of oppositely acting unidirectional overrunning clutches for applying a series of successive driving pulses to said lead screw to rotate it alternatively in opposite directions for each successive series, snap action means actuated by said guide for selectively actuating said clutches to cause said alternative rotations at precise intervals, said selecting means comprising a reciprocable bar, a pair of abutment members slidably mounted on said bar and alternatively engageable by said guide, collars mounted on said bar, compression springs interposed between said collars and abutment members respectively, and spring loaded means resisting movement of said bar until each abutment member engages its related collar, the related compression spring snapping said bar to operative position after the restraint of said resisting means has been overcome.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 490,984 Pine Ian. 31, 1893 674,670 Murray et al. May 21, 1901 747,056 Felsing Dec. 15, 1903 1,274,918 Maag Aug. 6, 1918 2,259,291 Chapman Oct. 14, 1941 2,306,045 Delano Dec. 22, 1942 2,652,247 Kane Sept. 15, 1953 

